It filled the halls of Marysville Elementary School on Tuesday morning, and sixth-grader Kenton Rush thought it looked kind of funny, like chocolate pudding. Thick and dark.

View full sizeBeth Nakamura/The OregonianVirginia
Holt and her 7-year-old granddaughter, Malika Holt, are reunited after
the Marysville Elementary School fire at the Holgate Public Library.When the fire alarm sounded, 11-year-old Audrie Hanna got up and got in line, just as she was instructed.

Once she left the classroom, she said, she "smelled a whole bunch of smoke ... The custodians were yelling 'Go! Go! Go!'"

"It was scary," said custodian Amber Stenseth. "My school was going up in flames and there was nothing I could do."

One minute it was an uneventful school day. The next, there was smoke and fire and suddenly everyone was lining up and leaving their backpacks, books, coats and the school pets. Children sobbed. Heartsick parents rushed to a nearby library to find their kids. Neighbors stood outside, astonished, as a community landmark collapsed before their eyes. If they got close enough, they could feel the heat without leaving their yards.

It was, indeed, an arresting sight: Flames ate away the roof as firefighters scrambled to save half the building. The other half burned nearly to the ground. About a third of the roof was destroyed; a charred skeleton was all that remained of the east end of the school, at 7733 S.E. Raymond St.

Although two members of the staff were hospitalized for minor respiratory problems, the rest of Marysville's approximately 435 students and 17 staffers were unharmed. A gerbil and a guinea pig also escaped without injury, thanks to a Portland firefighter who carried them out of the building.

The timing and location of the fire was fortuitous. It started on the east end of the school shortly after 11:30 a.m., when many of the students were either outside at recess or on the west end of the building at lunch.

Investigators don't yet know what caused the fire or where exactly it started. But witnesses said they saw smoke coming from the "discovery zone" an activity room on the east end of the building. The school's Web site describes the zone as a place for "hands-on learning for all students in the areas of design, construction, mechanics and movement."

What's next: Students will move to the vacant Rose City Park Elementary School, about five miles from Marysville at 2334 N.E. 57th Ave. It will open at 8:45 Monday. Students will be out of class until then. The district will provide transportation to all Marysville students and will contact families later this week with details about bus stops and pickup times.

The investigation remained in the embryonic stage Tuesday night, in part because the building was not safe enough for investigators to enter.

But tractors were expected to be called in Wednesday to tear down the walls on the east end of the building, so investigators can get inside and begin their work.

By all accounts, Tuesday's evacuation was rapid and orderly.

Teachers helped herd their classes to a field on the north side of the school, but the smoke and flames soon became too intense, so police, firefighters and others moved the students to nearby Holgate Library.

Even with no class or school lists, each teacher made sure all students were accounted for, enabling the school to determine that everyone was safe.

Parents who either saw the smoke or were notified by the Portland Public Schools' automated phone alert rushed to the library to pick up their children. Some parents arrived almost immediately.

Erik Gross was on Southeast Foster Road when he saw the dark cloud of smoke. He drove down Raymond Street and saw his son's school on fire. Gross and his wife, Cherie, rushed to the library to get their son, Harlan, 11, a sixth-grader.

The school, which serves kindergartners through eighth -graders, is a wooden Colonial Revival building originally constructed in 1921 in the Mt. Scott-Arleta neighborhood.

It's as much a part of the community as the residents.

Mary Dingle, the Roseway Heights Elementary School principal, previously served as Marysville's principal for five years.

"I'm sure there will be a lot of distressed people," Dingle said. "Marysville is a really sweet old building with a lot of character."